Patriotism Gap

Megan McArdle thinks this anti-Berkeley ad is weird:



She thinks it's stupid to run the ad on Fox News in D.C., because the Berkeley City Council is unlikely to be affected by the actions of Washingtonians. Well, sure.

But that isn't the point. It's a culture war thing. The whole point is to make people riled up about the fact that there are still "blame America First" leftists out there.

And if you want to tie it to the election, well, it's pretty obvious that the sort of people who boo National Guard ads in movie theaters are, in general, the sort of people who vote for Democrats. And of course Mrs. Obama played right into that when she made her unfortunate but revealing remarks about being proud of her country for the first time. Personally, I don't give a shit whether Barack Obama wears a flag in his lapel bin. But the Patriotism Gap is a serious problem for the Democrats. And stuff like the antics of the City Council of Berkeley only make it worse.

More Lefty Self-Congratulation

"What''s the matter with Kansas?" asks Mark Kleiman. His answer: witchcraft. Kleiman purports to think that Democrats need to stop treating Republican voters with contempt if they want to, you know, win elections. And so he commends a blog post from Tim Burke at Easily Distracted which does exactly that, at some length.

Burke starts with the classic telling but not necessarily representative anecdote: an NPR interview with a woman who works as an assistant manager at a store in Texas, a woman who (according to Burke) sounded "bone-weary about both politics and life." Apparently this particular woman has a bug up her ass about illegal immigration, and -- if the NPR interview accurately depicted her views, a possibly-dubious assumption -- she blames all her woes on illegal immigrants.

According to Burke, she is like the dirt-poor African peasant in Zimbabwe who believes that witchcraft is the cause of all his woes. Seriously, he says that -- I'm going to quote at length because my summary simply cannot capture the man's arrogance:

In the early 1990s in Zimbabwe, one part of my research concerned how the visible ownership of commodities performed or communicated wealth, and therefore aroused the dangerous jealousies of neighbors. This is a different kind of “mystery of capital” than what Hernando de Soto discusses. I am completely sympathetic to how southern Africans invoke ideas about witchcraft to explain how some people obtain wealth. Obviously it isn’t my own explanation, but there’s a sense in which it’s a completely reasonable attempt to connect the visible surface of material and economic life with the largely invisible mechanisms that move resources and capital around beneath the surface. How did your neighbor get a hold of bricks to complete one wall of his township house when you can’t get any? Where did the family next door get those new shoes, when you know that they don’t have any more access to wage earnings than you do? How did that man keep his job when you lost yours?

One story struck me as particularly potent. I was curious about zvidhoma, spirit beings who are basically the same as the tokoloshe that South Africans talk about. They’re said to be the tools of witches, able to exact invisible revenge on their victims by beating, wounding or causing illness in their targets. But on a number of occasions, I was also told cautionary tales about why you should never pick up what seems to be abandoned or unowned wealth or goods (like a bag of money or a wandering goat) because often these will have zvidhoma “stuck” to them who will then infest the unlucky soul who picks them up. Money and wealth circulate mysteriously, and carry hidden dangers. The people who get rich, in this worldview, are those who’ve learned to manage malevolent spiritual powers. If you’re not one of those people, you’ll just end up a victim if you chase after phantoms.

. . . .

That woman in Texas is probably not a Democratic voter regardless of whom the candidate is. Her key issue maybe ought to be health care reform, but she’s enmeshed in another kind of narrative, one where racial resentment, among other things, is lurking very powerfully just underneath the surface. But even that is a layer covering the real depths. What I heard listening to her was someone who basically thinks that she’s in a hopeless place because some great engine is churning mysteriously in the depths of history, that life is just bad now.

Right. That's the way to win over Red-State voters: tell them they're all a bunch of ignorant savages who believe in witchcraft. Condescend to them while claiming to do the opposite.

This post could only have been written by an intellectual. Ordinary people can believe dumb things, but this level of concentrated stupidity requires a very intelligent mind. Seriously, where to start?

To begin with, there's the blithe assumption that the typical "Red State" Republican voter is so badly off that the Zimbabwe analogy makes sense. Now, I don't deny that there are some people in the United States who struggle economically, or who are economically insecure in various ways. But still, the notion that this assistant manager's plight is analogous to the most destitute resident of Zimbabwe is a bit much. As is his assumption that she is typical.

As it happens, I live in a blue portion of a red state, but I do get out of the house from time to time -- attending state fairs and country music concerts and the like. Places where I meet and see likely Republican voters of the sort that Kleiman and Burke would like to attract. And you know, in the parking lot I see plenty of $40,000 SUVs and pickup trucks. Some of them even have indoor plumbing and electricity. Yes, there are people who have real economic problems. But there are plenty doing just fine, thank you.

Nor do I deny that there are plenty of people who believe screwy things. Not all of whom are Republicans -- I once had a conversation with a retired union member and lifelong Democrat who was utterly convinced that the oil companies had suppressed an engine which runs on sea water. Heck, John Edwards is trying to convince primary voters that a free trade agreement with tiny Peru will be an economic disaster for the United States. And he's one of these "competent" Democrats who presumably believes stuff based on evidence.

This assistant manager's concerns about illegal immigrants are not analogous to the belief in zvidhoma because, unlike zvidhoma, illegal immigrants actually exist. Moreover, it's not irrational for a person with fewer job skills to think that his or her wages and benefits are driven down, at least to some small degree, by illegal immigrants. The assistant manager may well exaggerate the size of this effect, but her view that competition from illegal immigrants affects those, like herself, who are in a more precarious economic position isn't obviously superstitious or irrational.

But all this is just a warmup. Because after comparing ordinary red-state Americans to destitute African peasants who blame their bad fortune on evil spirits, Burke goes on to assert that "competence" is a cultural value of unique importance to blue state intellectuals. Competence is not something that the poor benighted folks in red states care about, you see.

He really said that. I'm not making it up. Here's the paragraph I skipped in the block quote above:

I’ve written before in my blog about how “blue state” elites in the United States continue to walk into the trap of blandly assuming that competency, skill and experience are sufficient and universally appealing attributes for a political candidate in national elections, as long as that candidate also has generally liberal views. Following the Iowa caucuses, I’m returning to this theme, because it’s one claim that seems to rub a lot of my readers the wrong way and I’m desperately hoping that this time, the message gets across to Democratic voters.

He is saying that "'blue state' elites" who assume that competency, skill, and experience are desirable attributes are wrong in so believing. He values competence, of course, because he can see its importance, unlike the red state rubes:

Competency is something I value. I believe in it, I vote for it. It is what makes a leader (institutional, national, local) both legitimate and charismatic in my eyes. But that’s significantly because I inhabit social and economic worlds where competency has a very immediate and obvious impact on whether those worlds function well or not.

Are there social and economic worlds where competency isn't important? Burke inhabits an academic world, a world of words and ideas, and so he sees "competency" as a function of one's ability to manipulate words and idea. I have no doubt that, if asked to research a historical topic and write an essay about it, he would exhibit competence.

People from working-class backgrounds may be competent at different things, but it's profoundly condescending and demeaning to suggest they don't value competence like he (and his fellow blue-state elites) do. For example, I could be wrong, but I'm guessing that if the pipe under his sink develops a leak, Burke, like me, would call a plumber. I'm guessing he takes his car to Jiffy Lube when the oil needs changing. Odds are he has no clue as to how to safely clean a gun. A man who changes his own oil, does his own home repairs, and hunts regularly might consider Professor Timothy Burke to be profoundly incompetent at a whole range of important activities.

I hate to tell Professor Burke this, (well, actually, I don't) but I cannot, offhand, think of any social or economic worlds in which competency isn't important. From the local dry cleaner to the farm, to the grocery store, smooth operations require competence.

Now, I am a frequent critic of President Bush, and I certainly believe he's been incompetent in executing his duties as President. But it's not as if he ran for President in 2000 on a platform of incompetence. In fact, hearkening back to his father and advisors such as Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, he depicted himself as the more competent candidate. Going back to 1980, Ronald Reagan sold himself as the antidote to the feckless and, yes, incompetent Jimmy Carter. If there's anything close to a universal American value, it is respect for competence -- the ability to do things well.

I have a thought: maybe "red state" voters don't vote against the preferred candidates of "blue state" intellectuals because they believe in witchcraft or don't care about competence. Maybe they vote against them because they believe that blue state intellectuals like Timothy Burke look down on them. And maybe they are right about that.

Government = Santa Claus

I have often remarked to friends that modern liberals attribute to government the characteristics that small children attribute to Santa Claus. I wish I had said it here, on my blog, because if I had I'd have the perfect "gotcha" moment. As it is, I have such a moment, but those inclined to be skeptical can say (correctly) "but you never wrote it down."

Anyhow, believe me when I tell you that "modern liberals attribute to government the characteristics that small children attribute to Santa Claus" is a Cheerful Iconoclast aphorism. Well, I just saw this Hillary Clinton ad, via Glenn Reynolds and Ann Althouse:



I have seldom seen more vivid proof of one of my pet theories.

As Ann Althouse says, "Isn't this like when you get presents from family members and you know they charged it on your credit card?" Yes and no.

In truth, yes, of course. The recipients of these "presents" have to pay for them.

But in the mind of her target audience, the answer is no. The modern liberals that she's trying to reach think the government is Santa Claus. And so Santa can come up with these goodies, and nobody has to pay.

You know, there are a lot of libertarian-leaning people who tend to vote Republican who are very disaffected with George W. Bush and the Republican Party he has forged. This ad vividly reminds them of why they don't like Democrats.

What About Those Universities, Cass?

Clive Crook links to this Cass Sunstein article discussing the phenomenon of "enclave extremism." According to Sunstein, there is strong evidence that hanging around with like-minded people causes people to become more extreme:

About 60 Americans were brought together and assembled into a number of groups, each consisting of five or six people. Members of each group were asked to deliberate on three of the most controversial issues of the day: Should states allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions? Should employers engage in affirmative action by giving a preference to members of traditionally disadvantaged groups? Should the United States sign an international treaty to combat global warming?

As the experiment was designed, the groups consisted of "liberal" and "conservative" enclaves — the former from Boulder, the latter from Colorado Springs. It is widely known that Boulder tends to be liberal, and Colorado Springs tends to be conservative. Participants were screened to ensure that they generally conformed to those stereotypes. People were asked to state their opinions anonymously both before and after 15 minutes of group discussion. What was the effect of that discussion?

In almost every case, people held more-extreme positions after they spoke with like-minded others. Discussion made civil unions more popular among liberals and less popular among conservatives. Liberals favored an international treaty to control global warming before discussion; they favored it far more strongly after discussion. Conservatives were neutral on that treaty before discussion, but they strongly opposed it after discussion. Liberals, mildly favorable toward affirmative action before discussion, became strongly favorable toward affirmative action after discussion. Firmly negative about affirmative action before discussion, conservatives became fiercely negative about affirmative action after discussion.

Sunstein's particular concern in this article is the internet: according to him, it makes it a lot easier for people to form homogenous enclaves where opinions get radicalized. Arguably you see such enclaves in the form of Free Republic on the right and Daily Kos on the left. It seems clear that mutual affirmation by like-minded is a big part of what's going on at sites like this.

Professor Sunstein does ignore one salient point, though. While it's easy for people to seek out opinions that confirm what you already believe, people of a more (ahem) iconoclastic mindset can certainly find independent and thoughtful voices across the spectrum. And blogging encourages you to read people you disagree with, if only to hammer them.

But I wonder why it is that Professor Sunstein ignores one of the most obvious places where the like-minded can form enclaves: university faculties. University faculties lean well to the left, particularly elite universities. You can hardly expect university professors to be immune to this sort of effect. And you don't need a study to know that "disciplines" like "women's studies," "African-American studies," and -- my favorite -- "peace studies" have to be among the worst

From a practical standpoint, if you believe in freedom of speech, there's not a lot you can do about the whole problem of like-minded enclaves on the internet. I realize that, in Professor Sunstein's case, this is an open question, but for most of us the idea of a regulatory solution is anathema. But in the case of universities, it's easy to imagine policies that would increase ideological diversity. But Professor Sunstein doesn't mention that. I wonder why not.

Calling All Wingnuts

Matthew Yglesias, who has a somewhat-undeserved reputation to being open to points made by his ideological adversaries, nominates Steven Den Beste for Kevin Drum's "All-Time Wingnuttiest Blog Post Contest." Matthew's follow-up is here.

Note that Matthew never actually, you know, quotes a Steven Den Beste post and takes issue with his argument or analysis. Not that Matthew couldn't do this -- it's fair to say that the Steven Den Beste archive is a target-rich environment. But calling somebody a "wingnut" does not an argument make.

So my question is, what is the point of this exercise? Is the idea just to give liberal bloggers a chance to point at people they don't like and jeer? A Two Minute Hate for lefty bloggers, what an idea.

I Question Your Patriotism

I don't normally do actual direct reporting -- except for my restaurant reviews. Typically, I will see something somewhere, and I will link to it and bloviate.

But something happened over the weekend, and I just had to blog about it. Something of no great import, but it really struck me. On impulse, the Main Squeeze and I went to a late night showing of the latest cut of Blade Runner. The movie itself was great -- fun seeing Blade Runner again on the big screen, and of course it's nice to see Ridley Scott's version, as opposed to the happy-ending version foisted upon him by the studio.

Before the film they had the obligatory advertisements, including a music video-style ad for the National Guard. I looked for it online without success, and I would have posted the video if I had found it. Essentially it was a montage of the National Guard throughout history -- citizen soldiers fighting the Redcoats, more recent conflicts, and it also showed them in non-combat duties, like disaster relief and emergency rescue. It was kind of what you would expect from National Guard ad.

Here's what shocked me: after the ad ended, I heard boos and hisses from some other members of the audience. Not all of the audience, by any stretch, but an appreciable number booed the National Guard.

Now, it is certainly unfair to make generalizations about an entire group based upon a smattering of people in a late-night showing of an old science ficiton movie. However, given the demographics of the area, it's nearly certain that most of the people in that theater (myself and the Main Squeeze excepted) would identify themselves as being on the left.

Granted, many people who would self-identify as being leftists would be as revolted by that display as we were. Nonetheless, the modern left really does include within its ranks a fairly important group which thinks nothing of booing the National Guard. I will be blunt: while most Democrats are undoubtedly as patriotic as the next person, the fact is that somebody who would boo the National Guard in a theater is almost certainly a Democrat. And if they are not a Democrat, it's because the Democratic Party is insufficiently leftist and anti-American.

In the long run, I think that is a bad thing. Bad for America, bad for the Democratic Party, possibly even bad for democracy.

I have not blogged a lot about the Iraq war, but it's fair to say that I have some reservations about it -- in the long run, I think it may have been a tactical mistake. And I think that the cost of the war, both in terms of lives and treasure, may outweigh any possible benefits. Still, I have to say that I find much of the anti-war left utterly off-putting, because I think that a lot of them are, well, the sort of person who would boo a National Guard ad at a movie theater.

A while back, Blackfive posted a video by Australian country music singer Beccy Cole. Cole may be wrong on the merits, but culturally I feel a lot more affnity to her than those Code Pink people. Culturally, I have a visceral antipathy to the sort of people who would boo a National Guard ad. And yes, I question their patriotism.

To end this on a postive note, here's that wonderful Beccy Cole video:

Another Stupid Attack On George W. Bush

I am a frequent and harsh critic of President George W. Bush -- I think he's screwed up in so many ways I won't even try to name them all. Nor is he particularly eloquent.

But Ann Althouse is right -- "you have to will yourself into idiocy not to understand what he means here." The folks at Think Progress are hacking away to George W. Bush for supposedly asserting that Saddam Hussein killed Nelson Mendela, when in fact Mandela remains very much alive.

For the literal-minded, let me explain it. He's saying that people who might play a role in Iraq similar to the role Mandela played in South Africa are dead, because Saddam Hussein killed them. Not Mandela himself, but Iraqis like Mandela. This is what is known as a "metaphor." The tipoff, maybe, was when he "Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas" referring to more than one possible Mandela. If you don't understand he's being metaphorical, the statement makes no sense at all. Unless, that is, you imagine that George W. Bush thinks that South Africa has a clone army of Mandelas, which Saddam Hussein wiped out.

There are all sorts of really good things to criticize George W. Bush about. Why do people waste their time on idiocy like this?

UPDATE: Opinionjournal links to this Reuters article which makes the same dumbass mistake.

Mark Kleiman, Soccer, Snark, and "Bush Voters"

Mark Klieman links to these two reports regarding injuries in youth soccer. It turns out that "heading" the ball may result in permanent cognitive impairment. It's nice to see a card-carrying liberal noticing that IQ is actually important. Given the growing popularity of soccer in the United States, this raises important issues.

The real problem is that soccer forces its players to ignore their instincts. When a ball or other object is thrown in the direction of one's head, the natural instinct is to either duck or use one's hands to block the object. The instinctive reaction is not to use one's head to bat the object away. Soccer coaches have to train neophyte players to not put up their hands to stop the oncoming ball. Might I suggest that this instinct evolved for a reason? Maybe our cave-man ancestors who had the instinct to block the oncoming rock with their heads didn't manage to reproduce.

The obvious solution is a simple rule change: ban heading. If one wanted, one could allow players to strike the ball with an open hand. Perhaps if they made the ball oblong rather than round, let players catch it and advance it, tackle the ball-carrier, throw forward passes, and score by crossing the goal line, soccer might evolve into a sport worth watching.

But I digress. If soccer costs youth soccer participants one or two IQ points, it may not have noticeable effect on any one player, but the cumulative impact is costing our country millions of IQ points. And this type of injury is virtually invisible, unless it is really serious. Any sport can result in injury, and I'm certainly not a believer in the quest for the risk-free society. If somebody were bleating on about knee or ankle injuries, I'd probably say it was a known risk that people reasonably assume. But brain injuries are in a different category, and it is reasonable to ask whether the rules of the game couldn't be modified to make them less likely.

Banning heading is a no-brainer.

But, being Mark Kleiman, he couldn't make this point without a bit of gratuitous political snark. He just had to introduce it by saying the soccer moms were "breeding Bush voters." Bush has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with his underlying point, which is well worth addressing. But any chance to bash bush is worth taking, right?

It is this same propensity for self-congratulation that led to the Red-States-are-dumb IQ hoax, and to Howell Raines' confident prediction that Kerry would outscore Bush by a mile when in fact his test scores and grades were slightly worse than Bush's. Now, it could be that this self-congratulation is merely annoying. But it could also have real consequences. Maybe it is was a part of the reason they thought John Kerry was going to be a great challenger to President George W. Bush in 2004. Think about it: he's a thin-skinned liberal from Massachusetts who looks like Lurch. He can't order a hot dog without seeming awkward. He finds it impossible to utter a simple declarative sentence with a noun, a verb, an object, and, most importantly, a period at the end. He spent four months in the damn boat in Vietnam, but he nullified that by talking about it all the time. Not to mention his questionable record as an antiwar activist.

If folks on the left weren't so full of themselves, they might have noticed that this man was not a strong candidate. And 2004 was no throwaway year, like '96 for the Republicans. They had a real shot, and they blew it.

It's also just generally bad political strategy to talk down to people. I mean, Reagan won twice, by pretty comfortable margins, and he did it by getting "Reagan Democrats" to vote for him. Don't the Democrats want the votes of people who voted for Bush? Is it really useful or productive to tell such people "hey, we think you are brain-damaged"?

No Enemies To The Left

Ann Althouse links to this "scary, weird" Jane Hamsher post over at Firedoglake. Hamsher is mad because Elizabeth Edwards criticized MoveOn.org over the Petraus/Betrayus advertisement. I mean, Hamsher is really, really, mad. And she lays down the law:

So here’s the rule. You never repeat right wing talking points to attack your own, ever. You never enter that echo chamber as a participant. Ever. You never give them a hammer to beat the left with. Just. Don’t. Do. It.

I can't even begin to catalogue the things that are wrong and creepy, and really off-putting about this statement. And it's not an isolated theme on Hamsher's part -- she links to two of her own prior statements taking the same view. Here's what she said a year ago:

First of all — I don't care if John Kerry was eating live babies on TV, one week out from an election you do not repeat GOP talking points. Ever.

And lest anybody think she didn't mean it, in her most recent post, Hamsher linked to this prior statement and quoted herself at length -- including the "eating babies" part.

Note one thing Hamsher doesn't say -- or at least if she did, I sure missed it. She didn't say to avoid Republican talking points which are wrong, or misguided, or unfair, or stupid. She seems to be saying one shouldn't concede points even if they are true. Granted, the part about "eating babies" is probably exaggeration for rhetorical effect, but we all agree (I think) that baby-eating is a bad thing, worthy of condemnation. The non-exaggerated version of the principle she seems to be articulating is "don't criticize the left, even when they're wrong."

To her, it's not about finding truth or getting the right answer. It's all about tactics, about rhetoric, about PR and fighting the partisan war of words. But mostly it's about getting power, power for its own sake.

I don't want to sound like I'm red-baiting, but isn't this a return to the old communist notion of the "party line"? The idea being that you don't express public disagreement with the party, even if you think the party line is wrong? I seldom see such strident demands for group loyalty among conservatives and libertarians.

Ultimately, this is the collectivist, totalitarian impulse: the desire to crush dissent and stifle debate. The demand for "unity" and group loyalty. It's this sort of Leninist approach to politics that resulted in the deaths of tens, if not hundreds of millions of innocent people in the 20th Century. If the "progressive" movement hopes to form any kind of humane, post-communist left, it is thinking like this that they have to abandon.

Maybe Communism Really Is Dead

Guest-blogging over at Andrew Sullivan's, Bruce Bartlett (whose book on Bush I quite enjoyed), links to an appraisal of the economic thinking at the Kos Kids Konvention by his "old college chum" Max Sawicky, leftist economist at the union-funded "Economic Policy Institute:"

What sort of economic policy was flogged at Yearly Kos? I'd like to know. It didn't look promising for what any knowledgable person would call progressive policy.

Speakers included Austan Goolsbee, an eminent, very smart professor at the University of Chicago who advises Obama. I would say AG is not a person of the left, no disrespect intended. They also had Hale Stewart, a.k.a. "Bondad," a Kos front-age regular, who is in financial services. HS is a fine fellow, also not much on the left. Then there was Gene Sperling, former Clinton/Rubin economics apparatchnik. Robert Shapiro, former Clinton DoC appointee and DLC/PPI honcho. Some French dude I never heard of.

I find myself agreeing (again) with Bruce Bartlett here:

Max's point is that these guys may be liberal by conventional political definitions, but they are hardly men of the left. He finds this dispiriting; I find it reassuring.

Since there is about a 94% chance that the next President Of The United States of America will be a Democrat, it is indeed reassuring that he or she won't be advised by a true Person of the Left.

There is a good reason for that. What does it mean to be a "Person of the Left"?

The left had its run from 1850 until about, say, 1991. While there were all sorts of differences among leftists, some of which might even matter to a person not immersed in the intricacies of leftist politics, I think it's fair to say that the political Left had two core elements. The first was a radical critique of capitalism and the market economy. They thought that Capitalism was Evil with a capital E -- it made the poor worse off, led to exploitation and a whole host of other evils. Just to be clear, they didn't think that the market economy had imperfections or a few little problems -- they thought it was rotten to the core.

The second element was that they had something to replace capitalism with. Details varied -- greatly! -- but it was some form of socialism. So the idea was that we should have a full-bore centrally-planned economy or live in communitarian villages, or have some form of left-anarchy. Something different than an economy based on private property and market exchnages. This, we were told, would make us all better off. (Well, except for the kulaks, and they got what they deserved anyway.) And, just to be clear, ridiculous as it now seems, one of the key claims was that socialism would do a better job of delivering the goods than capitalism. When Khruschev and Nixon faced off in the impromptu kitchen debate, Kruschev didn't say "we will be poorer but happier." No, he said they would surpass the United States and wave goodbye.

In 1935, a serious, intelligent, rational, informed, humane individual could believe these things. That's simply not possible today. The market economy delivers the goods. Attempts to replace it with Something Radically Better have uniformly failed. Socialism proved itself to be one of the Worst Ideas Ever, responsible for the death of somewhere between 50 and 150 million people in the 20th Century.

Yes, there are a few holdouts who still believe in the radical critique of capitalism and who yearn to replace it with something radically better -- aging hippies, red-diaper babies who cannot admit their parents were evil, black-clad anarchists depressed from Seattle's cloudy weather, morally retarded British science fiction writers, Women's Studies professors at elite universities, and the like. But they are the intellectual equivalents of those Japanese troops hiding out on isolated islands who don't realize the war is long-lost. No longer able to plausibly argue that socialism will do a better job of producing the goods, today's leftist are stuck arguing things like "you have too many choices in the grocery store and that makes you unhappy." Yeah, that's sure going to be winner among those working classes.

Unlike Aggrieved People's Studies professors, economists have to have some passing contact with reality. It is therefore not particularly surprising that even those who advise Democrats have realized that an economy based upon private property and market exchange is basically a Good Thing.

The does not mean, of course, that all questions have been decided. Reasonable people can still disagree about the size and scope of proper regulations governing the market, the size and scope of any government interventions designed to help those less well-off, and the like. I suspect that all of the advisors for Democratic presidential candidates favor more government regulation than I do. But they aren't "people of the left" in the sense that they seek to throw out capitalism and replace it with Something Better. And, like Bruce Bartlett, I think that's a good thing.